bootable USB pen drive etc.

[Guest RJK]

Ages ago I made an old 256mb USB pen drive bootable, using HP's

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&mode=3&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-UNITY-I23839

....( I think that was the utility )

"HP Drive Key Boot Utility"

....and used a 1.44mb floppy whose contents got placed onto the pen-drive,

and then I could boot from the USB pen drive, and run the dos *.exe prog's

that I'd put on it as wel,l of course.

 

Recently I've been trying to do the same sort of thing,

i.e. (XP Home ed. BTW) ...formatted a 1.44mb diskette as a boot-up floppy |

copied memtest's mt200.exe (precompiled *.exe), onto it

.....and used the HP utility - and fine ...I've got a bootable USB pen-drive,

and memtest is running.

 

My question is, on a PC with XP Home ed. running, when I plug in the USB

drive, two drive letters appear for it :-

B:\ and H:\

...H:\ being the next available drive letter on that system box, and B:\ I

guess is to do with ancient stuff where A:\ and B:\ are the same drive

unless two floppy drives are installed. ( My first PC had two 360k 5 1/4"

floopy drives and no hard disk ! )

 

....on the pen drive B:\ is 1mb in size, and H:\ is 1.44mb (which is the

bootable floppy image I suppose).

 

Have I got something wrong somwhere, having ended up with two drives on the

pen-drive ?

....and if so, how do I delete them i.e. repartition it etc ?

 

TIA

 

regards, Richard

[Guest M.I.5¾]

Re: bootable USB pen drive etc.

 

 

"RJK" <notatospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:en%23xyJ%23KJHA.1012@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

> Ages ago I made an old 256mb USB pen drive bootable, using HP's

> http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&mode=3&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-UNITY-I23839

> ...( I think that was the utility )

> "HP Drive Key Boot Utility"

> ...and used a 1.44mb floppy whose contents got placed onto the pen-drive,

> and then I could boot from the USB pen drive, and run the dos *.exe

> prog's that I'd put on it as wel,l of course.

>

> Recently I've been trying to do the same sort of thing,

> i.e. (XP Home ed. BTW) ...formatted a 1.44mb diskette as a boot-up floppy

> | copied memtest's mt200.exe (precompiled *.exe), onto it

> ....and used the HP utility - and fine ...I've got a bootable USB

> pen-drive, and memtest is running.

>

> My question is, on a PC with XP Home ed. running, when I plug in the USB

> drive, two drive letters appear for it :-

> B:\ and H:\

> ...H:\ being the next available drive letter on that system box, and B:\ I

> guess is to do with ancient stuff where A:\ and B:\ are the same drive

> unless two floppy drives are installed. ( My first PC had two 360k 5

> 1/4" floopy drives and no hard disk ! )

>

> ...on the pen drive B:\ is 1mb in size, and H:\ is 1.44mb (which is the

> bootable floppy image I suppose).

>

> Have I got something wrong somwhere, having ended up with two drives on

> the pen-drive ?

> ...and if so, how do I delete them i.e. repartition it etc ?

>

 

One letter is the bootable image (the image of your floppy), the other

letter is the actual content of the pen drive.

[Guest RJK]

Re: bootable USB pen drive etc.

 

Thanks, I sort of guessed that it was something like that, ...will have to

research this some more !

 

regards, Richard

 

 

"M.I.5¾" <no.one@no.where.NO_SPAM.co.uk> wrote in message

news:48f30fa0$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...

>

> "RJK" <notatospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message

> news:en%23xyJ%23KJHA.1012@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

>> Ages ago I made an old 256mb USB pen drive bootable, using HP's

>> http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&mode=3&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-UNITY-I23839

>> ...( I think that was the utility )

>> "HP Drive Key Boot Utility"

>> ...and used a 1.44mb floppy whose contents got placed onto the pen-drive,

>> and then I could boot from the USB pen drive, and run the dos *.exe

>> prog's that I'd put on it as wel,l of course.

>>

>> Recently I've been trying to do the same sort of thing,

>> i.e. (XP Home ed. BTW) ...formatted a 1.44mb diskette as a boot-up floppy

>> | copied memtest's mt200.exe (precompiled *.exe), onto it

>> ....and used the HP utility - and fine ...I've got a bootable USB

>> pen-drive, and memtest is running.

>>

>> My question is, on a PC with XP Home ed. running, when I plug in the USB

>> drive, two drive letters appear for it :-

>> B:\ and H:\

>> ...H:\ being the next available drive letter on that system box, and B:\

>> I guess is to do with ancient stuff where A:\ and B:\ are the same drive

>> unless two floppy drives are installed. ( My first PC had two 360k 5

>> 1/4" floopy drives and no hard disk ! )

>>

>> ...on the pen drive B:\ is 1mb in size, and H:\ is 1.44mb (which is the

>> bootable floppy image I suppose).

>>

>> Have I got something wrong somwhere, having ended up with two drives on

>> the pen-drive ?

>> ...and if so, how do I delete them i.e. repartition it etc ?

>>

>

> One letter is the bootable image (the image of your floppy), the other

> letter is the actual content of the pen drive.

>

>

[Guest M.I.5¾]

Re: bootable USB pen drive etc.

 

 

"RJK" <notatospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:epbBUuYLJHA.3080@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

> Thanks, I sort of guessed that it was something like that, ...will have to

> research this some more !

>

 

No real research required. When you produce a bootable CD or memory stick

or practically any removeable bootable device, you have to create the

bootable part of the drive from a floppy disc (or an image of it on another

bootable device). The floppy simply get placed onto the CD (or whatever) as

an image file of the floppy (usually hidden but it doesn't have to be).

When you boot from the CD (or whatever) the image file is simply mounted as

an A: drive and then the PC boots from that image thinking that it is

booting from a real floppy disc. The A: drive image is visible (though read

only) once the boot has completed. If you have a real floppy drive it

becomes B:.